Good morning.
Thank you for the invitation to appear in front of you today to make this presentation.
I was selected to be part of the U.S. State Department's international visitor leadership program to exchange expertise on human trafficking and prostitution with the FBI, state officials, and NGOs.
We praise Bill C-36 because it recognizes that human trafficking and prostitution are closely linked and related. Human trafficking is intrinsic to the Asian woman's experience of prostitution, regardless of what country she comes from.
The interconnected nature of human trafficking and prostitution is logical, given that we adopted the Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, as well the CEDAW convention. The bill demonstrates leadership nationally and internationally through its commitment to dignity and equality. It is clear to us that Canada rejects the dehumanizing claim that racialized women freely choose prostitution and that somehow we're not harmed by prostitution.
We welcome the political leadership that the bill offers in allowing the police to effectively act on evidence of organized crime in human trafficking and human trafficking into prostitution.
We're especially aware that, currently, the human trafficking law we have only applies to the traffickers, but does not apply to the buyers. The bill makes it illegal for a man to knowingly buy a trafficked woman. The bill also helps prevent the transformation of organized crime into regular members of a legitimate business community.
Those who exploit Asian women for prostitution use various methods to control them. We know pimps will confiscate immigration documents or passports. They are known to encourage and force women to overstay visas, leaving women with illegal immigrant status. They are also known to threaten women who are not regularized with deportation or arrest.
By potentially removing the automatic criminalization of prostituted women, Bill C-36 offers some improvement in response to women in situations of exploitation. However, current immigration contradicts the spirit of the bill to defend women from exploitation. The bill does not change the balance of power created by our current immigration laws. We need this to change in order to enable women to successfully exit prostitution who might not have permanent status, citizenship, or a non-punitive means to be regularized.
The recent cases of abuse and exploitation of employers in Canada under the temporary foreign workers program demonstrates the vulnerability caused by poverty and a lack of secure immigration status. This is also an example of a gross imbalance of power in favour of the employer.
We recommend granting women in exploitative situations landed status upon arrival in Canada regardless of how each woman arrived. This will reduce women's vulnerability to being recruited or trapped in prostitution and will also contribute to her chances of successfully exiting the sex trade.
In conclusion, Bill C-36 establishes a progressive new legal paradigm. However, a made-in-Canada approach to prostitution must be much more robust if we want to create conditions that will allow us to abolish prostitution. Criminal law is limited in that it can only address violence and exploitation after it happens.
The Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution calls on our federal government to provide comprehensive social supports. These measures will both serve women who are exiting prostitution, as well as prevent women from being pushed into prostitution in the first place. These are the viable alternatives that we need so that we can counter the systemic inequalities that are in prostitution and be able to access our charter rights.